Cynthia Jane Moss (born July 24, 1940) is an American

ethologist Ethology is the scientific study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait. Behaviourism as a term also describes the scientific and objective ...

and conservationist, wildlife researcher, and writer. Her studies have concentrated on the demography, behavior, social organization, and population dynamics of the African elephants of Amboseli. She is the director of the

Amboseli Elephant Research Project The Amboseli Elephant Research Project is a long-term research project on the ethology of the African elephant, operated by the nonprofit Amboseli Trust for Elephants. The project studies the elephant's social behavior, age structure and populatio ...

, and is the program director and trustee for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE).

Life and work

Early life and education

Cynthia Jane Moss was born in

Ossining (town), New York Ossining is a town located along the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York. The population was 40,061 at the time of the 2020 census. It contains two villages, the Village of Ossining and part of Briarcliff Manor, the rest of which is l ...

on July 24, 1940. Her father, Julian, was a publisher of several small-town newspapers, and her mother, Lillian, left her work as a legal secretary to raise Cynthia and her older sister, Carolyn. Moss’s appreciation for nature began early as her love for horseback riding allowed her to explore and observe the outdoors. She began riding horses at the age of 7, and by age 12, she had her own horse, Kelly. Her passion for horseback riding led her to attend Southern Seminary, a private boarding school with a distinguished riding program during her junior and senior years. She attended

Smith College Smith College is a private liberal arts women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith and opened in 1875. It is the largest member of the historic Seven Sisters colleges, a group of elite women's c ...

where she took many classes in arts and literature, and where she earned her B.A. in philosophy in 1962.

Career

In 1964, she was hired as a news researcher and reporter for ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'', where she did interviews on religion and theater. In 1967, Moss took a leave of absence so she could see the African continent herself, which had been described to her in letters by her college friend, Penny Naylor, who had recently moved to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It was on this trip that Moss visited British elephant researcher Dr.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton Iain Douglas-Hamilton (born 16 August 1942) is a British zoologist known for his study of elephants. He earned both a BSc in biology and a D.Phil. in zoology from Oriel College, Oxford, and he is the recipient of the 2010 Indianapolis Prize ...

’s camp in

Lake Manyara National Park Lake Manyara National Park is a protected area in Tanzania's Arusha and Manyara Regions, situated between Lake Manyara and the Great Rift Valley. It is administered by the Tanzania National Parks Authority, and covers an area of including about ...

in northern

Tanzania Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...

, which is where she “became completely hooked on elephants.” While she enjoyed working for ''Newsweek'', the following year, she quit her job and moved to Africa to become a research assistant for Douglas-Hamilton, because "the pull of Africa was stronger". In these studies, they discovered that elephants could be identified by their ears because no two elephant’s ear shapes, or combinations of markings and veins, were alike, which Moss describes in her first book ''Portraits in the Wild''. She continued to work with Douglas-Hamilton until the fall of 1968, when his project ended and he returned to England. Although her work with Douglas-Hamilton had ended, Moss was determined to stay in Africa and continue studying and working with the wildlife. To gain the experience and credentials she needed to begin her own study of elephants, she worked with Sue and Tony Harthoorn in

Nairobi, Kenya Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper had ...

as a veterinary assistant, assisted in research on plains animals and elephant feeding behavior in Tsavo National Park, and became an editor for the newsletter of the

African Wildlife Foundation The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is the leading international conservation organization focused exclusively on Africa's wildlife and wild lands. AWF's programs and conservation strategies are designed to protect the wildlife and wild lands o ...

(AWF), ''Wildlife News. In 1972, Moss was encouraged by ecologist David "Jonah" Western to consider studying the last undisturbed elephant herd in Africa, in the

Amboseli National Park Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Kajiado South Constituency in Kajiado County, Kenya. The park is in size at the core of an ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local ...

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. So in September, Moss teamed up with Harvey Croze, and they began the

(AERP). The first step they took was to catalog pictures of the elephants which would aid them in keeping track of and recognizing different elephants. In 1974, their budget was scarce and Harvey Croze left for other work. In 1975, Moss published her book ''Portraits in the Wild'', which gave her respect in the field, and aided her in receiving a $5,000 grant from the AWF, thus allowing her to devote nearly all of her time to the study of the elephants of Amboseli. That year, Moss set up camp in the park and began to gather information on the elephant’s behavior, daily movements, and relationships. The TC and TD family units are the main subjects of her book ''Elephant Memories: Thirteen Years in the Life of an Elephant Family'' (1988). 1975 also marked the beginning of a period of very low rainfall in the Amboseli region, which took a significant toll on the elephants, but also gave Moss a clear view of elephant behavior in times of drought. Moss focused on elephant conservation in the late 1980s as she saw the elephant population halved by poaching for ivory and loss of habitat. And thanks to her work combined with many others and conservation groups, the African Elephant was placed on the Endangered species list in October of 1989 and in January of 1990, the sale of

ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals ...

was prohibited. In 2001, she created the Amboseli Trust for Elephants (ATE), which is a non-profit trust, which focuses on elephant conservation, management, and policy-setting. Moss is most famous for her study of

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the li ...

, an elephant matriarch who has been the subject of Moss’s book ''Echo of the Elephants: The Story of an Elephant Family'' (1993) along with several documentaries. Moss's studies have given a remarkable insight into the way elephants live, showing that they live in a highly organized, multi-tiered society that is led by a matriarch. The studies and findings of Moss and her team are reported and summarized in ''The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal''.

Awards

Moss has received many awards in recognition of her dedication to the study of elephants in Amboseli including the Smith College Medal for Alumnae Achievement (1985), MacArthur Genius Fellowship (2001), and the Conservation Award from the Friends of the National Zoo and the Audubon Society. In addition, she has made four award-winning documentaries about elephants including '' An Apology to Elephants'' (2013) – HBO, ''Echo: An Elephant to Remember'' (2010) –

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

, ''Echo and Other Elephants'' (2008) –

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

, and ''Echo of the Elephants'' (2005) – PBS, Nature. In 2019 she received an honorary doctorate from Yale University.

References

External links